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An online paradigm for exploring the self-reference effect

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  • Sarah V Bentley
  • Katharine H Greenaway
  • S Alexander Haslam

Abstract

People reliably encode information more effectively when it is related in some way to the self—a phenomenon known as the self-reference effect. This effect has been recognized in psychological research for almost 40 years, and its scope as a tool for investigating the self-concept is still expanding. The self-reference effect has been used within a broad range of psychological research, from cultural to neuroscientific, cognitive to clinical. Traditionally, the self-reference effect has been investigated in a laboratory context, which limits its applicability in non-laboratory samples. This paper introduces an online version of the self-referential encoding paradigm that yields reliable effects in an easy-to-administer procedure. Across four studies (total N = 658), this new online tool reliably replicated the traditional self-reference effect: in all studies self-referentially encoded words were recalled significantly more than semantically encoded words (d = 0.63). Moreover, the effect sizes obtained with this online tool are similar to those obtained in laboratory samples, and are robust to experimental variations in encoding time (Studies 1 and 2) and recall procedure (Studies 3 and 4), and persist independent of primacy and recency effects (all studies).

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah V Bentley & Katharine H Greenaway & S Alexander Haslam, 2017. "An online paradigm for exploring the self-reference effect," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-21, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0176611
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176611
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bates, Douglas & Mächler, Martin & Bolker, Ben & Walker, Steve, 2015. "Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 67(i01).
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